Violet Crown Posted May 24, 2011 Share Posted May 24, 2011 I need a curriculum for just conversational German, at a German 3 (or higher) level, to be used by a native speaker teaching a non-native-speaking high schooler. We've been using OSU for German 2 and it's worked very well. Previously, dd15 had learned a fair amount of spoken German from a homeschooling friend, a native speaker, who's been tutoring her for a very modest fee, and dd's spoken German continues to be quite ahead of her "school" German. The problem is, her tutor is having trouble figuring out how to continue dd's spoken German. Just getting together to talk about things leaves them both struggling to find topics for conversation. She had been wondering, is there some sort of conversational German curriculum that she could use? I'm not sure this query is even making sense. :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rieshy Posted May 24, 2011 Share Posted May 24, 2011 Em Neu from Hueber is one possibility. It's also available through amazon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted May 24, 2011 Author Share Posted May 24, 2011 Thanks! I'm forwarding the link to my friend to see if she thinks it would be useful, as I can't read a word of it. Ah, why did I study French instead? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted May 24, 2011 Share Posted May 24, 2011 I've no experience with German but a few thoughts occur to me: How about obtaining a copy of the Oxford English Picture Dictionary: English-German (out of print, I believe) and having your child and the tutor use a double spread to spur discussion each week. Here's a link to the mono-lingual English version so you can get an idea of the contents. Play games in German Watch a TV program or movie in German and discuss Bake something while discussing the process in German Take a walk around the neighborhood and make conversation Regards, Kareni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted May 24, 2011 Share Posted May 24, 2011 I need a curriculum for just conversational German, at a German 3 (or higher) level, to be used by a native speaker teaching a non-native-speaking high schooler. We've been using OSU for German 2 and it's worked very well. Previously, dd15 had learned a fair amount of spoken German from a homeschooling friend, a native speaker, who's been tutoring her for a very modest fee, and dd's spoken German continues to be quite ahead of her "school" German. The problem is, her tutor is having trouble figuring out how to continue dd's spoken German. Just getting together to talk about things leaves them both struggling to find topics for conversation. She had been wondering, is there some sort of conversational German curriculum that she could use? I'm not sure this query is even making sense. :tongue_smilie: What my advanced level German teacher did was to give us pages with vocabulary and phrases for certain topics and then to have us construct conversations. There was a daily repetition of tell me about yourself, about your family, tell me about your school type of questions. These were really helpful, because they were the sort of conversations I was having. Try the sort of exercises on the Goethe Institute exams: Zertifikat Deutsch B1. Maybe tasks like how to order things at a bakery or green grocer's. How to ask the price of a book. Buying stamps. The hardest German conversation was the first one I had. I went up to an ice cream stand and was trying to buy five single scoop ice cream cones. He kept trying to give me one five scoop cone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted May 25, 2011 Author Share Posted May 25, 2011 These are great suggestions; I feel like we have a lot to work with here. Many thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 These are great suggestions; I feel like we have a lot to work with here. Many thanks. Another thing our instructor did was to assign a small article to read and talk about. We were expected to know all the vocal in it and be able to retell the article and discuss it. Sort of narration for German. We used small articles from Der Spiegel and newspapers. GeoLino and National Geographic World are good for younger students. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rieshy Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Another thing our instructor did was to assign a small article to read and talk about. We were expected to know all the vocal in it and be able to retell the article and discuss it. Sort of narration for German. This is a great idea. You may not even have to buy magazines. We don't live in an urban area. In fact we live in the country in TN and don't even have cable T.V. but after we got a new blue-ray player at Christmas my husband discovered we get Tagesshau and Bild.de -both are German language news channels. I assigned my daughter daily viewing. She'd sit, listen and jot down words to look up. The cool thing is that all the reports are short and you can click on them and have them repeat. You can also find a lot of german language blogs. I've been reading german "mommy" blogs and fanfiktion.de as part of my self-education. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 (edited) This is a great idea. You may not even have to buy magazines. We don't live in an urban area. In fact we live in the country in TN and don't even have cable T.V. but after we got a new blue-ray player at Christmas my husband discovered we get Tagesshau and Bild.de -both are German language news channels. I assigned my daughter daily viewing. She'd sit, listen and jot down words to look up. The cool thing is that all the reports are short and you can click on them and have them repeat. You can also find a lot of german language blogs. I've been reading german "mommy" blogs and fanfiktion.de as part of my self-education. There are also German channels that stream live (NDR, ARD, MDR I think all do this). And iTunes has podcasts from several good German shows (Die Sendung mit der Maus, Wissen macht ah!, and Deutsche Welle shows.) Some are audio only, but several have video too. Der Spiegel, Fokus, and many other magazines are online. I would start with something really small. I remember my first assignment was about two paragraphs and took me all night to figure out all the words I didn't really know. We're fans of Sendung mit der Maus and Sesamstrasse because they present such useful concepts. There is usually a Sesamstrasse video available here. (Look for the "Video starten" link.) Edited May 25, 2011 by Sebastian (a lady) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cathmom Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 http://www.amazon.com/Conversation-German-Points-departure/dp/0442207239 This is the book I used in college in the early 90s. I do not know if there is a new edition. Mine is the 5th edition. It's a fabulous book for conversation. There are 52 chapters, each with a different topic. For each chapter there are 2 pages. The left page has a picture and vocabulary words related to the topic. The right page has 4 sections: 1) questions that get you to analyse the picture 2) extension questions about the topic but not the picture (for example, on the library page, there's a question "Where do you study better, in the library or your room? Why" (in German of course!) 3) discussion themes (more open-ended questions, like "what would happen if someone took a book without checking it out?" or "describe a library" 4) a set-up for a conversation or scene in English, which they then act out. My teacher always assigned a one-page essay on the topic as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 http://www.amazon.com/Conversation-German-Points-departure/dp/0442207239 This is the book I used in college in the early 90s. I do not know if there is a new edition. Mine is the 5th edition. It's a fabulous book for conversation. There are 52 chapters, each with a different topic. For each chapter there are 2 pages. The left page has a picture and vocabulary words related to the topic. The right page has 4 sections: 1) questions that get you to analyse the picture 2) extension questions about the topic but not the picture (for example, on the library page, there's a question "Where do you study better, in the library or your room? Why" (in German of course!) 3) discussion themes (more open-ended questions, like "what would happen if someone took a book without checking it out?" or "describe a library" 4) a set-up for a conversation or scene in English, which they then act out. My teacher always assigned a one-page essay on the topic as well. Hey thanks - I was looking for something to add more conversation to our Spanish III class next year, and I found the Spanish edition of this - I'll give it a go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cathmom Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 Hey thanks - I was looking for something to add more conversation to our Spanish III class next year, and I found the Spanish edition of this - I'll give it a go! ¡De nada! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted May 26, 2011 Author Share Posted May 26, 2011 Thanks! Amazon had it for $1.90, so I just ordered it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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